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Summer must be coming, because it seems like there’s more good music out there. I really like this new group, which I know is a little bit Haircut 100-ish, but catchy and British, just like you want while praying for the sun to finally come out. This one is called “Never be Lonely.”

I saw this at the bookstore and I couldn’t help myself. Well, I could help myself a little bit by getting it from the library for free. This is Donald’s latest book, and it is co-authored with Robert Kiyosaki, who is only a millionnaire, but is rich like Donald is.

Theirs is a philosophy that is not about saving passively and diversifying, it is about being financially intelligent. They state that the type of investing that they do is not risky, because they study what they do and are active investors. It’s a contrarian philosophy to everything we are told constantly by the financial services industry, which they imply exists to manage our money, and make a lot of cash from doing so.

All of that aside, I enjoyed reading about the life philosophy of these two gentlemen. I love a good story, and there is a good story in someone who has gained and lost as much as Donald has. Robert is a bit more open about some of the aspects of his upbringing, his experience in Vietnam, and later on as a real estate tycoon. But both of them talk about their failures and lessons learned. For whatever reason, I do admire Donald Trump, because beneath the ego, he does have a human quality to him (and he is a human being after all).

The stories about Robert’s Vietnam service were chilling, and this statement that he throws in:

“As a pilot in Vietnam in 1972, I realized we were not fighting to stop communism. I realized we were fighting for oil and for big oil corporations. Today, we are in the same war - different countries, same corporations”

At the same, he is affectionately not technologically enabled - “Not only am I obsolete, I am becoming more rapidly more obsolete with each new technological change that comes along. I once bought an iPod but could not figure out how to put information into it or how to get anything out of it.” Umm…don’t you just plug it in?

In any event, I thought this was an enjoyable read - advice about being rich aside, there’s a bit of education about how our financial system works in the macro level and how folks like Donald leverage it to its maximum.

Spring edition

Redfin, one of the most interesting real estate sites around, has now expanded to Boston. Washington, DC is coming (soon).

http://www.redfin.com

Redfin gets a new market, new look

Top three things: Proxy settings, Proxy settings, and Proxy settings.

Make them respect the OS X network set up.

Firefox really doesn’t suck on Mac, though. It’s great!

Firefox on the Mac < Walking Like Giant Cranes

I picked this book up based on my interest in the way that software is designed and the best and not so best ways that software is put together. The subtitle is “Why high-tech products drive us crazy and how to restore the sanity.”

The book is a bit of a diatribe against programmers and software developers, who in the post-green-screen era of computers are not really fit to be interface designers. This is reflected in the design of so many technologies we use, from the alarm-enabled key fobs we have for our cars now (even though no one needs the panic button - it was just added because there was space for another feature), to the veritable VCR.

I really like the analogy given about technology being like a dancing bear - we are amazed that the bear dances at all, even though it doesn’t dance very well at all. I actually experienced this myself when I installed this “panoramic photo software” that came with a digital camera I bought. I was familiar with a similar function that I used to use on Canon cameras that worked really well. This version, in comparison, was really clunky, but I am supposed to be happy because I can make a panorama at all. You get the point.

The solution(s) seem to revolve around getting true interaction designers involved and separating them from the programmers, and having the programmers subscribe to the design philosophy and code around that. Mr. Cooper gives a few nice examples of how he’s done this, and recommends others do it, by creating user “personas” and designing to them. This makes sense to me completely.

He and I depart ways, though, in the level of discomfort he levels at programmers’ role in designing software. The implication here is that programmer-types will never understand what it is to be a user of a system; they will always design for themselves. Therefore, we must hire an army of interaction designers to understand this for them, and they will specify the interface down to the nth degree in huge design documents.

I don’t think this is the answer either, in the era of methodologies such as Agile, which prioritize the customer and a cross-functional approach to software development. I think when we say “you are good at X, you do X and don’t interact with the customer,” I think we set ourselves up for intellectual couch potato-hood.

All of that said, for someone looking to find out how we got where we have around software, I think this is a worthwhile read, for historical significance.

“Bellevue spokesman Tim Waters said the city’s policy of denying domestic-partner benefits is financially motivated.”

“In recent years the city has adopted a no new benefits policy,” Waters said. “We’ve been trying to be good fiscal stewards.”

City of Bellevue is being sued by firefighter Larry deGroen for denying him paid funeral leave when his partner’s father died. I am impressed that in 2007, the City of Bellevue feels comfortable making statements like the above, because after all, equality costs money.

I am afraid that my response has to be that I be a good fiscal steward myself and avoid spending money in the City of Bellevue.

It’s prettier in Seattle anyway, and the traffic is better here.

Workers sue Bellevue, open new front in Washington gay rights fight

A nice treat to enjoy the beauty of the bay area. Nice memories.

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